Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The Beginning of the End

After the first episode of season 9 of How I Met Your Mother, we’ve finally discovered who the mother of Ted’s children is! Nine seasons in the making, and HIMYM has managed to become a novel which Ted relays to his children to display how his wife was met. There’s just one problem, Ted hasn’t actually met her, she has just been introduced in the show.
                First off, I believe this is a great way to start off the season. Eight seasons is a great runtime for a show! However, viewers had to have been getting extremely anxious to find out who the mother was. According to the writers of the show, season eight was supposed to be the last season of the series. Yet there were so many unresolved factors in Ted’s life that had to be addressed, it seems it couldn’t be the end of the show. Without the new season, the show would be left off with many plot holes and dissatisfied viewers. The most important of these being that Ted still has romantic feelings for Robin.
                The last season left off with the imminent wedding between Robin and Barney. Prior to this wedding, Robin had a nervous breakdown – something not entirely foreign to her character. Rather than Barney, her fiance, being the one to help Robin in her marriage-related time of crisis, who else was there but Ted. Ted, who is the best man of Barney. Ted, who is the ex-boyfriend of the bride-to-be. Ted, who happens to be the hopeless romantic that jumps at any random occurrence of love-induced trauma and deciphers it as the universe’s sign that some type of involvement is imminent. This is just Ted’s character. He has to be the one who helps someone in their time of need. He’s the one who comes through at the last minute every time, especially for Robin. But Ted’s not stupid; he had to know that if he went to help Robin it would bring up old feelings. I SWEAR IT’S LIKE HE PURPOSELY COMPLICATES EVERYTHING.
                Anyway, Ted decides to become even more like Ross from Friends by quickly changing professions from an architect to an archaeologist. That is, considering he digs up ancient feelings he thought he had freed himself of. To make matters worse, he has checked into a couples resort for the wedding reception. “Oh dear God, does he want to torture himself,” is clearly the only proper response to this. However, this is just some of the typical and major humor presented in HIMYM. The writers put the characters in awkward and annoying situations constantly to show their atypical reactions and personalities. 
                In this particular case, the writers seem to be purposely pointing out Ted’s feelings for Robin throughout these new episodes. I believe that the writers want to emphasize his feelings in order to move the show in a specific direction. For example, after his intimate moment of holding hands in the park with Robin, Ted decides that he wants to move to Chicago. Literally a whole episode revolves around this one tiny detail in the story that everyone knows won’t happen. He cannot bear the thought of living in the same state as the woman he loves while she is married. He has decided to leave New York, an architect’s dreamland, a place he loves, to avoid someone he loves. Ted also attempts to avoid Barney due to his rediscovered love.
It’s a good thing Barney doesn’t know about Ted’s feelings because then- oh wait. Barney was watching Ted comfort Robin at the park whole time? Wow, this show really loves to throw the most awkward situations possible into the picture. The most recent episode deals with the rift driven between Barney and Ted’s friendship. Ted is put between a bad place and a bad place. Being between a rock and the bad place just wasn’t good enough for him. However, in the end of the episode, he decides that he will overcome his feelings and be there for Barney as friend and best-man. This truly does help to put a spotlight on Ted’s character. He’s hopelessly in love with Robin, yet still decides to push past that and be Barney’s best man at his wedding. He will do anything for his friends, even overcome his love and emotions.
                I believe that although this seems to be a small detail it was done for a big reason. Barney being aware of Ted’s feelings is the best push Ted needs to start getting over Robin for good. This is possibly the best way to begin the ending of the show. They’ve finally introduced the mother, and Ted needs a way to transition from Robin to the mother. To emphasize the point, the writers put the mother small parts of each episode. For example, in the first episode, we are reminded that Ted eventually moves on because the mother meets Lily on a train ride to the wedding. Although this is a subtle hint, the point is pushed further in the third episode, when Ted has a flashforward (?) of him and his wife being in the same place as a current love-sick Ted. These reminders foreshadow that Ted is soon about to transition from his old love to his new love. The show as a whole definitely seems to be coming to an end. The fact that a new season has been added has definitely been helping to tie up loose ends.


2 comments:

  1. The fact that you're giving your analyzing the situation and show as you're summarizing it works well. I actually stopped watching the show because I grew tired of waiting on who would be the mother of Ted's children but thanks to this I'm just about up to speed with it all. You wrap Ted's personality up in a brief nutshell and it's good. Next time try to cut down on the summary a little to make it a little better.

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  2. The analysis if the show in this piece is definitely a strong point. I like that youbring to notice things that may not be apparent to viewers of the show (and for those that don't watch the show, it's good insight). I feel like you took on some qualities of the writers of this show in as far as keeping us in suspense until the end of the piece. I think you could work on more analytical dicussions because that is the strong point in your writing.

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